Replayed Half Life 2. Blew me away.

[VincentRollsRoyce]

So, I just re-installed Half Life 2 yesterday, early in the morning and started playing the game once again. I was blown away after realizing that how well this game holds up even today, in pretty much every department.

The atmosphere, storytelling, characterization, pacing, gunplay, controls, writing, ending, everything is just fantastic. Now I can't stop myself from playing Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2 once again as well, so I am going to start playing them tomorrow as I wait for my Doom's copy to arrive because I don't want to leave the world of Half Life 2 and want to stay inside it. That's how well executed Half Life 2 series and its world really is.

I've played many story driven Single Player FPS in my life, and TBH Half Life 2 is still the best the genre has to offer. The game really shows hard work of extremely talented people at (old) Valve. The game also makes me extremely sad how Valve doesn't make games like these anymore. It's a masterpiece.

Did you play Half Life 2 when it first came out and still play/like it? Have you played it long after its release? What are your thoughts about it?

 

[Saelune]

I like that you added "story driven single player" before FPS, since purely as an FPS its ok, but its an interesting story that they need to finish.

I did not play it when it was new. I didn't play it until The Orange Box, but I did greatly enjoy it, even after doing the crazy achievements like One Bullet and that damn Gnome.

I think its crazy to think that there is this galactic Empire out there that we have so little info about. Also I like interacting with things.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I played it when it first came out on the Xbox. Yes, the original Xbox. Because it had received a 5 out of 5 from X-Play and my friend had been singing its praises for a while. And I loved it. Loved. It.

And when The Orange Box came out with the two episodes, I played the living daylights out of them too. The world just feels so alive, the characters are memorable, and the story--both what is there, what is in Portal, and what has been hinted at--is just fascinating.

All that being said, I've kind of grown a bit jaded on Half-Life as a series. I still think that the games themselves are masterpieces, but Valve? Valve has betrayed me, and pretty much every other fan, in my opinion. It has been too long, the hype was stacked too high that it has now collapsed on itself, and if--and that's a strong if--the next game in the series is ever released, odds are it just won't be what we're hoping it to be. I would love to be proved wrong, but Valve has made utterly no effort to do ANYTHING in regards to Half-Life, so whatever guys...

 

[Hawki]

I'm mixed on Half-Life 2 myself. I feel the base game is average, Episode I is bad, Episode II is excellent. It's also compounded in that Half-Life 2 has a very strong story (or at least storytelling), compounded by decent, sometimes frustrating gameplay (e.g. the focus on puzzles).

 

[MysticSlayer]

While I respect Half-Life 2 and will defend it when necessary, I can't really say I'm a huge fan myself. I came into it late after games like FEAR, BioShock, STALKER, and Metro 2033 had already released, and to me, all those games absolutely blow Half-Life 2 out of the water in terms of story and atmosphere. And gameplay was a constant hit-or-miss, generally being a hit up through Ravenholm and generally being a miss post-Ravenholm.

Overall, to me, it is a blur. Not a great game (though influential) but not a horrible game either.

 

[Nazulu]

I first played it 2014 because I kept hearing so many good things about it. The reason I put it off for so long is because I'm not a fan of FPS games, but Half Life 2 is definitely a great game.

What I liked most is it's style and how it's designed to keep you busy with one thing or another all the time. I never really played a game like that before, where it kept throwing in different challenges every 10 to 30 seconds, though I wish I could skip the 'story segments'. It's all useful info the first time, but it just becomes tedious after (besides the villains).

So I really enjoy replaying about 60% of it again, like the intro, vehicle sections, the bridge, the prison, and the ending, but not so much everything else.

It's probably on my top 10 list somewhere, maybe. I prefer the original Half Life more though, which I first played in 2015, because I was surprised by HL2.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Its definitely one of the best FPS of all time. the level design and pacing was so much better than any game at that time and still better than 99% of FPS today. heres the example


and you can see how much creative half life 2 is compare to todays FPS games.

New Doom is best FPS game since Half life 2.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Heh, the one time someone praised it at this modern time.

I will says the game was good for its time (remember when this first came on, it was the first to have a proper physic engine). Granted I have not played the game recently do I have no idea how it will hold in the modern time but some people think it's a letdown when compared to mordern fps games.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Nothing about Half Life 2 really clicked with me unfortunately.

Keep in mind, I played it a bit after the orange box came out. I really disliked the design of everything. It was all sludgy browns and greys and mustard yellows. I don't like zombies and I was really tired of nazis at the time (WWII games were all over the place back then) so the combine and headcrabs were pretty lackluster enemies. Kind of a weird gripe but I also didn't like that a lot of the enemies were either my size or smaller. Even the big walker things that show up later have those skinny little spider legs that look ready to snap. Nothing really felt satisfying to shoot because nothing seemed viscerally threatening.

I REALLY don't see what the rage was with the gravity gun. It's cool at the end when it gets supercharged, but I was looking for excuses to use it all game and shooting was almost always the better option. Plus by that point I had played psy-ops (which actually came out first) and destroy all humans, both of which have similar "telekinesis" mechanics with less restraints.

I could go on but my intent isn't to shit on the game. I've kind of made peace with the fact that it's not for me and I'll never really understand what other people see in it. It just checks too many boxes for things that personally bother me so maybe the nuances and atmosphere just get lost in that.

 

[votemarvel]

As far as I can tell, people who like first person shooters tend to love Half Live 2 because it introduced most of the modern features they enjoy today.

On the other hand people who don't like first person shooters tend to dislike it because it introduced most of the modern features that they don't enjoy today.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Portal is better. That said, I'm not a FPS fan so I wouldn't recognise a quality FPS if it hit me in the face. They're all pretty much the same to me.

 

[default]

One of my favourite things about Half Life 2 is how it's seamless. You travel in one big long line from one end of the game world to the other with no level transitions or travelling cutscenes (except some teleporting). You walk, drive and fight the entire way. Really feels like a long journey.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

So, I just re-installed Half Life 2 yesterday, early in the morning and started playing the game once again. I was blown away after realizing that how well this game holds up even today, in pretty much every department.

The atmosphere, storytelling, characterization, pacing, gunplay, controls, writing, ending, everything is just fantastic.

Funny you should mention pacing, I thought Half-Life 2 was good but had a real pacing problem. I didn't like how it would stop everything and lock you in a room to watch people talk at you. I'd prefer a cinematic cut scene to that, at least I could put the controller down and have a drink or a wank or something.
And the car sections were a bit boring as well. It seemed to want to be Halo in those moments but Halo was a bit more fun in that department

Still, was a fun game for the time, but games like Metro blow it out of the water when it comes to linear story driven FPS s

 

[RaikuFA]

I like the game but every time I try and play it, about halfway through something happens and I can't finish it. Like my data gets deleted or something. I'll try again one day.

 

[KaraFang]

While I respect Half-Life 2 and will defend it when necessary, I can't really say I'm a huge fan myself. I came into it late after games like FEAR, BioShock, STALKER, and Metro 2033 had already released, and to me, all those games absolutely blow Half-Life 2 out of the water in terms of story and atmosphere. And gameplay was a constant hit-or-miss, generally being a hit up through Ravenholm and generally being a miss post-Ravenholm.

Overall, to me, it is a blur. Not a great game (though influential) but not a horrible game either.

Half Life 2 = November 16, 2004 (real time live full character facial animation (alex vance et all), material based physics engine, engine real time speed adjustment, reactive AI)
Fear = October 17, 2005 (barely any facial animation at all (characters look like "plastic" mannequins), real time engine speed adjustment, physics for materials, reactive AI)
Bioshock = August 21, 2007 (deep story. Cutscene based deep facial animations but minor at best for most character models, adaptive AI, bees, no real materials physics)
Stalker = March 20, 2007 ( not played, but hear good things.)
Metro 2033 = March 16, 2010 (again not played but heard good things... but its approx six years later! I'd expect it to be!)

The games you mention are all after half life 2. The closest, fear, was one year later in release. That's VERY long for PC game development, especially in the early 2K's when game engine and abilities were advancing at a fantastic rate.

HL2 was one (one, admittedly at that time but a milestone one) that added emotional facial acting to characters (not a thing before HL2, can think of VERY basic ones before.. heck it was a miracle if the models even looked at you), a material physics engine (wood floats on water, things have various weights, wood shatters etc etc etc.

Even the AI was pretty good with the cover tactics (again, when striders ran after you and then looked into the hole you were hiding in - making them crouch-, because you shot them? Not been done before...)

You can't judge a game against things that came after. You have to judge them on their pros and cons at the time released and bear that in mind when playing now. When I play original Doom? I don't judge it against any modern FPS as it's massively unfair.

 

[MysticSlayer]

The games you mention are all after half life 2. The closest, fear, was one year later in release. That's VERY long for PC game development, especially in the early 2K's when game engine and abilities were advancing at a fantastic rate.

Yes, I understand that. Part of my reason for bringing up those four games is to point out that what might have been an impressive story and atmosphere for 2004 is no longer impressive in light of games that came after it. Sure, there are other FPS games from 2004 or earlier I think hold up better today than Half Life 2 (e.g. System Shock 2, DOOM 3), but I can at least understand that, in 2004, Half Life 2 could at least come across as impressive.

You can't judge a game against things that came after. You have to judge them on their pros and cons at the time released and bear that in mind when playing now. When I play original Doom? I don't judge it against any modern FPS as it's massively unfair.

That's absolutely stupid. I can't suddenly forget my time playing FEAR or Metro 2033 in order to help Half Life 2 hold up better. And if people are going to compare Half-Life 2's and BioShock's stories (which they were doing a lot of at the time I played Half-Life 2), then I at least expect it to be close to what BioShock delivered.

But just like we often talk about today with "realistic" vs "stylized" graphics, technological feats fade in time. I can understand historically that games like DOOM and Half-Life 2 were impressive for their time from a technological perspective, but no one playing those games for the first time today would think so, and you can't expect people won't play them for the first time today. What wowed people in 2004 won't wow people today. Sure, there are occasions where a game can look pretty years after it releases, but those are few and far between, and modding may be involved in some of it (e.g. Skyrim).

But there's still a lot more a game can do to hold up in terms of story and atmosphere, and there's certainly games whose gameplay has stood the test of time. For me, Half-Life 2 doesn't do either of those. Sure, there are times where I enjoyed the gameplay, but it wasn't a lot when compared to the full game. And some sections, especially Ravenholm, are good for atmosphere. As a whole, though, it doesn't do a lot for me. I can understand how someone might be impressed with it 10-12 years ago. But that doesn't change the fact that, for me (someone who first played it in 2011), it really didn't seem to be that great.

 

[KaraFang]

That's absolutely stupid. I can't suddenly forget my time playing FEAR or Metro 2033 in order to help Half Life 2 hold up better. And if people are going to compare Half-Life 2's and BioShock's stories (which they were doing a lot of at the time I played Half-Life 2), then I at least expect it to be close to what BioShock delivered.

But just like we often talk about today with "realistic" vs "stylized" graphics, technological feats fade in time. I can understand historically that games like DOOM and Half-Life 2 were impressive for their time from a technological perspective, but no one playing those games for the first time today would think so, and you can't expect people won't play them for the first time today. What wowed people in 2004 won't wow people today. Sure, there are occasions where a game can look pretty years after it releases, but those are few and far between, and modding may be involved in some of it (e.g. Skyrim).

But there's still a lot more a game can do to hold up in terms of story and atmosphere, and there's certainly games whose gameplay has stood the test of time. For me, Half-Life 2 doesn't do either of those. Sure, there are times where I enjoyed the gameplay, but it wasn't a lot when compared to the full game. And some sections, especially Ravenholm, are good for atmosphere. As a whole, though, it doesn't do a lot for me. I can understand how someone might be impressed with it 10-12 years ago. But that doesn't change the fact that, for me (someone who first played it in 2011), it really didn't seem to be that great.

Well, I think we will have to disagree... and I certainly don't think it's stupid either.

I wouldn't watch King Kong from the 1950's and then king Kong from 2000's and complain about the CGI etc. I would take it from that time period and consider it from those angles. I have to do the same with older games vs new ones.

For example, I played System Shock 2 before I played System Shock 1... I bore that in mind while I was playing it and tried not to let improvements of the more modern game affect my opinion.

So, stupid, no. But if you didn't enjoy HL2 while accepting that it was introducing in their fledgling formats things the more recent games improved upon, them thats fine. Different strokes for different folks.

Myself, I still kinda wanna see the conclusion to Alex Vance's arc. (sighs)

 

[MHR]

It's good. It's atmospheric. Maybe you think there are better atmospheres, but there isn't an atmosphere exactly like Half-Life 2.

Sure, there is the famous Ravenholm, but the bleak hopelessness of City 17, and the artwork -- especially the graffiti -- make up that unique dystopian atmosphere. EDIT: Also that wonderful soundtrack.

And the bridge. You know, THE bridge.... I don't think a game has made my palms that sweaty before.